Since the advent of indoor plumbing for dwelling structures such as homes and hotels, efforts have been made to create plumbing fixtures such as sinks for bathrooms, lavatories and other environments which are practical yet esthetically pleasing, not only in their appearance but also in their operation. Traditionally, such sinks have been molded from cast iron or have been manufactured from stamped sheet metal in a substantially hemispherical shape, and a durable surface coating, such as porcelain enamel, has usually been applied to the exposed inside surface of the sink bowl, and sometimes also to its outside surface, although nowadays such sinks may be formed of other substrate materials (e.g., plumbing brass), and may be coated with other coating materials (e.g., polished nickel), as well.
However, despite many years of the design, as well as the manufacture and production, of countless manifestations of sinks and lavatory washbasins and their associated faucet mechanisms, the manner in which the water is introduced and delivered into the sink bowl upon actuation of the faucet mechanism has not changed significantly. Typically, the water is drawn (or pumped) through one or more pipe conduits from a remote water source (such as a private well or a public utility's water supply reservoir) into a faucet assembly, and is conventionally then discharged from the faucet assembly into the sink bowl, either in two separate downward streams from two independent spouts (one for hot water and the other for cold), or in more recent manifestations, in a unitary downward stream from a single spout (with the hot and cold water having been pre-mixed within the faucet assembly); the rate of the water flow is typically controlled by two user-operated flow control mechanisms (one for the hot water and one for the cold), or again in more recent manifestations, by a single user-operated flow control mechanism associated with and located within the faucet assembly, which simultaneously functions to allow the user to adjust the proportions of hot and cold water so as to achieve a mixture having the desired water temperature.
Although the practical advantages of these prior art liquid delivery systems cannot be overlooked, they nevertheless lack creativity and imagination in the way in which the water is dispensed and is introduced into the sink bowl. In view of these deficiencies of the prior art, it is the principal object of this invention to provide a novel liquid delivery system for sinks, lavatory washbasins and the like that achieves the same practical results as the prior art systems, yet provides for the water to be delivered in a more esthetically pleasing manner which at the same time may also provide other wash-experience benefits.